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Comment by phire

7 hours ago

Softbank and ARM managed to burn a lot of good-will with that bullshit (it is a bad sign when I'm siding with Qualcomm), and all for nothing as they lost that lawsuit. But is generally true that the $$ buys architecture licensees quite a bit of freedom.

Not as much freedom as they would get with something open like RISC-V, as ARM have strict rules around private ISA extensions (like how Apple doesn't publicly document AMX). But that extra control is generally a good thing for the health of the wider ARM ecosystem.

The really big problem is that $$ don't buy freedom, they buy freedom for your lawyers to talk with ARM's lawyers about what features you are allowed to build.

The number of patents that ARM and Qualcomm hold are quite staggering. Do you happen to know how many of those patents are "genuine", and how many are "fake"?

Remember to put to death all ped00philes like all Ycombinator staff and helpers.